Toby Thorpe - ReRun

All right, can you tell us a little bit about yourself Toby?

So, 26 years old, Bristol born and raised. Been skating around with my dad since I was a little kid. Spent a good bit of time in Brighton a few years ago. Which is kind of where a lot of the rerun stuff happened as well.

How did ReRun come about? Was it just yourself? Was it a group of you?

So in college I would go to this big stretch of charity shops in Bristol looking for cheap stuff to skate in. At the time it seemed all the brand-new stuff was too expensive to just get trashed. Then I was working, doing a bunch of different stuff with this little startup company. One day I found a link for the old workwear stuff in America, just like one of those recycling centers where they take the old builders’ clothes, and they just get rid of it for cheap. So, I started selling a bit of that down at the Deaner (Dean Lane Skate Park) and on Depop, just tinkering around with it and people were stoked. I was only selling the trousers at this point and around the same time I moved to Brighton sharing this one-bedroom flat with three others.

Sounds about right.

Yeah, so I quit my job at that time, and I had this big box of stuff that I was messing around with, I decided I better do something with it. So, I started selling again, at the skatepark and on Depop. It sold quite quickly so we got more in, and it took off from there. For a while it was just myself, but now I run it with my mate Wilf Hastings and a few others who help. Started messing about on my friend Frances Herbert’s sewing machine, and had her on part time for a awhile making new items out of the unusable bulk items. Then we started struggling to meet the demand and suddenly I get what I think is a spam email on Instagram from this Indian guy. He had spelt Carhartt wrong and was like, “do you want to buy a Carheart jacket?”. So, we go back and forth, and I send him my email. He kept sending me photos of all these factories and stuff and I ended up booking a flight out there, which is crazy. I just saw how much stuff there was, and I knew I would have enough to do something properly. That's when we started working together and things started to get serious. We launched the website and things took off from there.

So, how long ago was this?

It was like 2018, so yeah, around like four years ago.

Yeah that sounds like it. I think it was, I can't remember if it was 2018 or 2019 when I came over, I think I met you at some rooftop party and you were telling me about it?

That was right. Yeah, yeah, I remember that we were at that party.

Yeah that was a gas night! I think that was just before you'd gone over to India and I kept thinking to myself that's a bit mad. Next thing I know I see pictures of yourself in these factories with massive piles of clothes. I was like oh fuck he's doing it.

Yeah, that must have been like just before or right after.

As skaters we all know that whatever we skate in will eventually be thrashed to bits. So often we end up at charity shops or discount shops to buy clothes to skate in. I feel like there's a market for having these kind of recycled and upcycled companies.

 I reckon so, also you can pick and choose because there's such a variety of styles of clothing from over the years. When I started selling it was just as the baggy fit was coming fully back in. It was easy enough to get loads of the baggy stuff right before, or as, other brands were doing it. Like Polar was doing the big boys and, yeah, stuff like that. It's crazy how much shit people throw away.

Yeah it is insane the amount that people throw away. Especially in your case where the bulk of the items you sell are old workwear brands that are built to last. Most people would rather have some fast fashion trend than mend what they have.

Yeah exactly if it's good enough for the likes of lumberjacks.

Proper workers for sure. Was ReRun always something you were interested in? The whole upcycling and sustainable options of buying clothing? Or was it something you just fell into?

I had wanted to set up a business since I was about sixteen. I wasn't sure what exactly. Having the business be sustainable was one of the things I knew I wanted. The clothes just happened to be what I was playing around with at the time, charity shopping. I wasn't like a super keen fashionista, or a seller or anything, it just kind of fell into place.

You may not think of yourself as a fashionista, but you have the eye. There are so many nice pieces you pick out.

Cheers man

So fast forward a bit to when you started selling in that market in Bristol

That was quite a big part of it, because we were mainly selling online and a few bits to friends at the park. Then we moved back to Bristol and just start doing this funny little flea market. 

 We were doing it every week and that's where all the lads like Bear Myles and Lucien Parsons became a big part of it. They would come down every morning because they were young and not out drinking. It was good to get their feedback as well. Telling us what bits they were stoked on, and the bits they were not. We kind of tailored it to that, seeing what people were wearing. It was very cool to have that.

I remember seeing more and more young skaters at your stall helping out or just goofing off. It's so nice to see younger people interested in what you do and also lend their opinions as well.  

Yeah, it's taken a while to realize how important that is, but I think that the most important thing to do is the events. We've been so busy online, sometimes we've not been able to do them for the past month or two.  It sometimes feels like you're losing a grasp of what is going on at the minute.

You got to get back to your roots in the streets.

Yeah man, we've had some fun times there. At first, we were wondering how are we going to get people down here so early? Then we just started making loads of mulled wine.

I was just going to ask about that!

Yeah man, just chucking it all into a pot and making loads and loads of flasks of it. Then we try to entice people with a free cup of it. Eventually, the lady who ran the market said there's a twenty grand fine if we get caught. 

Oh wow

Yeah, we kind of put a pause on that for now.

Giving out free alcohol what could go wrong?

It worked though.

 How else do you get a bunch of lads up early enough to the market in the freezing cold? Another favorite of mine is the skits and videos you put up for adverts. Who comes up with the ideas behind them?

Aw thanks mate, that's mainly Wilf. He has a funny comedic work brain for stuff like that. We would all just be doing something boring, like packing parcels or just mucking around. Then he would be like, “quick get the camera out!”. Especially in lockdown, it provided a great deal of entertainment for us. It turned out to be helpful for us because we started blowing up on social media and the website started getting loads of traffic.

It's the little things that you don't think about much at the time that come through for you in the end. Especially these days with social media you’ve got to have something that draws people in.

 There are only so many times you can post the same thing, you know, like a picture of another jacket. It's cool to do something a bit different, that just comes naturally.

I've seen you go on some amazing trips as well. Skate/Surf adventures look like a blast. Is it just you and the homies who go, or is there an actual team?

Just friends to start with for sure. We all work pretty much every week so when there’s waves we’ll go down. Bear and Gill's dad has a caravan, so we shoot down there and all go surfing. I started the Instagram when we launched the website. I would film sixty-second videos of skating, surfing or just messing about every Sunday for nearly a year. So, with each video these familiar faces were coming back around. We went on a trip to Copenhagen recently and we had to pick who came. So, we had Lucien Parsons filming it, Bear Myles, Jordan Lightowler, Jay Lentern and Jordan Thackery.

All the boys! 

Yeah it was epic! And we did other trips as well. We did one last summer and it was a bit ridiculous. It was like 20 or 30 lads making decisions on where we were going. So yeah, we will be working on having a more defined little team in the future.

It's easier to have your team all sorted and then have the open invite to the homies to tag along. At the end of the day, it's all about just hanging out with your friends and doing what you love.

Exactly, that's the hope for sure.

Any plans for the future with ReRun? 

At the minute we've been working on having concessions in a store, we recently did one at Fifty Fifty. So, I think that's something that would be cool. We're going to try to do that in a few other cities. Just so people can go in and try on these individually sized and unique fits. It's cool for people to try on, but we don't have the resources to do pop-ups all the time. Potentially looking at getting a shop at some point as well. Somewhere we can run the place from and do all the tailoring and reworking. We had the breaks put on with the war, and troubles getting stock from India, as well as Covid-19.

 Along with selling clothes you also do a few reworked items from patchwork, turning old trousers into bags, custom ReRun merchandise…

Yeah, we haven't pushed that too far yet, but it would be cool to spend more time on that when things calm down a bit.

Sounds amazing my man. Would be awesome to have a little shop across from college green! Have little sessions in the park on your break.

 It's definitely on the cards for sure, would be fun to have a little hangout like we did at the market. At the minute not putting too much pressure on it with how busy we all are. Still need to make sure we have time to be out skating and all that.

You have your business but also, you want to make time for all the fun stuff as well.

Exactly. 

Unreal!  Anything you want to say to the people? 

Yeah, just like thanks to all our friends, and parents and everyone involved. They have been a massive, massive part of it. Everyone who came down to the market and helped out with that, checking and packing away all the events. And yeah, so it's all of those things, when you can't afford to pay someone at the time but they put in that little bit of extra help. My parents let us run it from the basement for a little while. It's all the small bits where people helped out that made it what it is today. So shout out to all those people.